Kong Salak Plus CEO ready to fight money-laundering charges in court

Phantawat “Nott” Nakwisut was among 41 persons indicted over money-laundering charges on Friday. The case is related to Phantawat allegedly giving winning lottery tickets worth 53 million baht to Atthakarn (last name withheld), who then deposited the winnings in the CEO’s bank account.

The so-called lottery winner is on the run.

Phantawat and 16 others showed up in court on Friday to face the charges, while 20 are missing and four others are behind bars.

On Friday, the CEO told DSI that he had met Atthakarn once, through an agency, when he assigned him to claim winnings from the Government Lottery Office for “business reasons”.

Phanthawat said the transaction had been done when the online lottery platform was first set up.

Back then, he said, he contacted different business partners and investors and had no chance to check the background of each person.

“If these criminals had been caught earlier, I would not be the one being blamed for money laundering,” he said.

Phantawat insisted that he had no hand in any money-laundering operations, adding that he was confident he could clear his name in court.

He added that there were criminal groups pretending to be part of his company and cashing in on his fame to trick people into buying “random boxes” to win mysterious prizes.

“I heard that people have lost more than 10 million baht in these scams. This is the case the police should focus on instead of money-laundering allegations against me,” he said.

The Kong Salak Plus platform, which was popular because it did not collect commissions, was closed down by the court in February over allegations of selling overpriced tickets and even selling them to people under 20, which is against the law.

Phantawat also recently established a party called “Change” to contest in the May 14 election. He serves as leader of the party.